Hey, Kids, What Time Is It?

January 20, 2019

On this second Sunday after Epiphany, we mark the last of the four great manifestations of Emanuel – God-With-Us:  the Nativity, Epiphany, the Baptism of our Lord, and the Wedding Feast at Cana.

We Christians mark time differently than does the world.  The world measures chronos time, time marching forward chronologically, relentlessly, and sequentially, until that time when it’s time for someone else to close our eyes, one last time.  By faith, we also live in what is called kairos time.  Some call it liminal time; others know it as God’s time.  Liminality is literally a threshold place where people “stand at the threshold” between their old way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way.

John describes Jesus’ turning jars of water into wine as a sign.  So instead of merely saying, “Oh, wow!”, we want to look toward that which the sign points.  The sign John reports – repurposing those Moses’ water washing jars into vats of the new vineyard’s finest vintage – preserving and extending a wedding feast – happens on the third day.  Jesus was raised on that day.  Many of the Hebrew Bible’s references to the Day of the Lord, the coming of the Messiah, refer to that event as a wedding feast.

At our 9:30 A.M., Sunday worship, in prayer, Word, song, sermon and Meal, we’ll begin to recover what it means to breathe, live, move, and have our being inside God’s time.

Pastor Jeff